The task force was launched to investigate further into some of the findings from David MacLeod and Nita Clarks report to government in 2009. The report, entitled ‘Engage for Success – enhancing performance through employee engagement’ (an interesting read in itself) was originally commissioned by Lord Mandelson (who was Secretary of State for business at the time). The report took an in-depth look at employee engagement and reported on its potential benefits for companies, organisations and individual employees in order to, as Mandelson put it, “set out what government can do to help promote an understanding of just how much greater employee engagement can help improve innovation, performance and productivity across the economy.”

The report identified some key issues, such as the barriers to wider adoption of engagement, how to harness engagement for innovation, and how to maintain morale through difficult challenges such as downsizing. David and Nita argue that if employee engagement and the principles that lie behind it were more widely understood, if good practice was more widely shared, if the potential that resides in the country’s workforce was more fully unleashed, we could see a step change in workplace performance and in employee well-being, for the considerable benefit of the UK.

MacLeod explains:

“What we’d like to do on this task force, is together, in creating this movement, harness people’s experiences with fleshing out practical ideas (for successful engagement) – not develop a paint by numbers plan, but rather to connect people and have groups of practitioners who want to share and learn together in a free and open space; to have ‘gurus’ harness their insights and have the task force leading and developing this – picking areas that we want to focus on. Nita Clarke and I will write up the key themes that emerge from all this in a year and a half or so.”

The Communications Lab are delighted to be asked to be part of the guru group, and we are really looking forward to getting involved. We are hopeful that we will be able to build on our collective experience to help create what a really exciting future for Britains workforce.

By Rachael Stanleick

The Communications Lab

19^th May 2011

Networking Event -’The Engagement Coalition’ – Annual Get Together

September 2011 - The Hub, Kings Cross London

An annual event which aims to bring together a diverse body of subject-matter experts from different organisations, to push the boundaries of new thinking, understanding and practice in the field of engagement.  

Our Purpose? 

We’ll achieve this by; 

• Providing opportunities for networking, giving members and those within the industry a place to talk, share and collaborate 
• Working with members to set the agenda for the coalition so that the programme of activity is relevant to their work
• Identifying programmes of research with our members and conduct research on their behalf to help develop the profession and members 
• Helping to enhance the professional standing of our member
• Actively developing the skills and capabilities of our members, providing learning and development in key aspects of engagement                                                                                                                

Many of you have told us you’d welcome the opportunity to get into a room with other like-minded professionals to talk, share and collaborate on the subject of engagement. 

Event details; 

getting everyone on the same page

The All On The Same Page communication programme was developed and delivered in a 10-week timeframe to respond to this challenge. The objectives were

1 Help people understand the ‘One British Gas’ vision, values, strategy and brand promise.

2 Clarify the Cardiff Centre of Excellence role and position within ‘One British Gas’.

3 Help people understand the part they play in these changes and drive the behaviour changes required to make ‘One British Gas’ a success.

4 Involve and engage people in the approach.

5 Measure success of programme in terms of:

a) Movement against the Commitment Curve.

b) Employee Engagement

c) Customer Satisfaction (Net Promoter Score (NPS) – the industry standard measure for customer satisfaction).

A ‘big picture’ visual story and creative was developed which formed the “hub” of the All on the Same page programme, with the other tactics as the“spokes”.  The big picture was the tactic that translated the strategic thinking into an accessible visual metaphor for the audience and provided a useful tool for the management community to use.  At the centre of the “big picture” messages was the British Gas brand.

In order to ensure that the visual story was accepted and used, a series of stakeholder communication sessions were held. Getting ownership for translating the strategy into intended behaviour change was a critical part of the programme.

creating a compelling story

We then worked on a series of activities to make the project more than merely delivering messages, but to ensure it was about changing behaviour and increasing engagement across. We worked with three groups of people to increase engagement skills and understanding of the “All onthe Same Page” project and messages.

• The engagement champions – Firstly 12 people were selected using role profiles to perform a new role (20% of their day job) and training kicked to help develop their understanding and skills around employee engagement.  They then were tasked to support the programme, but their role went beyond that and they have gone on toprovide an important role in helping to implement the Engagement Survey and create action plans from the results.

• Secondly, a regular senior manager meeting was turned into an All On The Same Page event. Senior managers heard their leader deliver the big picture story, discussed and practiced themselves, gave their support to following up team leader workshops and the radical approach of introducing engagement reps. The measurement approach was also discussed andagreed.

• Thirdly, team leaders attended a half-day workshop and worked through both the big picture messaging, the All On The Same Page programme and most importantly worked on their own engagement and how to engage their team.

Touchpoint event - task led rather than speaker led

Having built these foundations, we then delivered the all-employee Touchpoint sessions.  1200 people attended 12 sessions across 6 days.  The sessions were highly interactive and used the big picture as the central theme and messages.  The event started with a ‘heritage corridor’ as an entrance device so people were immersed in the British Gas story the moment they arrived.   Then the event featured teamwork exercise on the brand promise, a values workshop where teams created youtube style videos and also a star wall was used for attendess to contribute ideas to making the changes happen. Each strand of the Touchpoint event agenda was used to sustain energy and dialogue to keep the focus on the longer-term behaviour changes needed. This was done via several mechanisms including a youtube video site, which hosted the top 6 employee- produced videos from the events.  Colleagues could vote for and comment on contributions.  We also turned the star wall event item into a full-blown suggestion scheme and developed the ‘big picture’ and brand promise messages into a workbook for team leaders to use with their teams as a way of reinforcing and discussing key messages.

Outcomes

We used the commitment curve (awareness, understanding, involvement and commitment) to develop questions that would track colleague mindset, as well as measuring their understanding. The same question set was used in July and in September to provide pre- and post-programme measurement.  Colleagues were asked to rank statements from strongly agree to strongly disagree, using a six-point scale.

The percentages shown below represent the strongly agree and agree responses.

‘I have received sufficient information about why we formed One British Gas’ – from 68%to 89%

‘I know what the British Gas vision is’ – from 74%to 93%

‘I understand the business rationale for the change’ – from 57%to 87%

‘I understand the part I play in making One British Gas a success’ – from 82%to 96%

‘I could explain the vision and values to a colleague’ - from 44%to 82%

‘I am aware of how my work affects company performance’ from 75%to 96%

‘This company inspires me to do my best work every day – from 61%to 74%

Engagement survey results:

August’s interim 64%, up from 57% in August last year

Net Promoter Score September ’08: -14% September ’09: +28

By the end of the programme we had achieved:

• strong leaders support for the All On The Same Page approach and developed a compelling  story which achieved clarity

• improved leadership communication

• put in place the foundations for change through the interaction of the Touchpoint events combined with the engagement representative role

The Net Promoter Score shows that the work has a clear business outcome as it shows that the benefits

of engaging with colleagues are being passed on to customers.

People are All On The Same Page!

In one company I was part of a “movement” a seemingly really exciting group of people brought together to make things happen, change the culture virally…. There was no PMO, no plan, no gants and no agenda – just do it, we were given permission. Or so I thought until I actually put this into practice, working on a “leaders as communicators” progrmme for line managers in my business area I was told by the global head of L&D who ran the “movement” that I had overstepped the mark, gone into territory that wasn’t mine, I was put well and truly back in my box….

We have bring your daughter to work, bring your family to work, even bring your pets to work but how abut starting with us – bring ourselves to work? So I now work for myself, I think it was for the best really, I have the freedom to be me which liberating but a bit scary….. take this blog, I’m still worrying about what I can and can’t write, what I should and shouldn’t write…. So I’m making a stand here, to bring my whole self to work, to talk about whatever I want to talk about.. Mostly it’ll be employee engagement cos that’s what I do, but that’s not the whole story…. By bringing myself to work, expressing my personality, who I am, what I care about and what I want to talk about means that sometimes this blog will feature other stuff too… I have no idea if this will work or be a complete disaster but I’m up for it, I’m up for being me at work, are you?